ABSTRACT
Scholars of Mexican state-society relations continue to contest the scope, pace and direction of shifts and innovations that date back to the 1982 economic crisis. The factors that are seen as exerting pressure on the old model are familiar: economic constraints and subsequent restructuring, changes to the political rules of the game, and the ascendancy of a muchheralded neoliberal, technocratic administrative class. Moreover with the transition to the first post-revolutionary, non-PRI federal administration, brought about by way of the ballot box in July 2000, it is important to reflect on the state-society legacy that the incoming Fox administration will face. Scholars of state-society relations still situate themselves between two general views: the first relies on the premise that a fundamental ‘breakdown’ of the old institutions is both imminent and a prerequisite to a post-clientele state-society model in Mexico. The second view depicts these institutions as resilient and flexible, capable of adapting to greater political competition and a liberalised economy; here state-society relations are bound to an incremental, controlled process of innovation.
